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Sefrou fire, July 2021 إقليم صفرو · Sefrou

Out · last detection 10 Jul 2021, 13:20 UTC

The fire started on 9 July 2021 in Sefrou, Morocco, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 497 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 7th largest in Fez-Meknes since 2016 (of 20 with a page). Number 3 in Morocco in 2021, of 10.

The power measured by the satellite is low (28.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
497ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
9 Jul 2021 – 10 Jul 2021
Municipalities hit
1
provinces
Started on
9 Jul
2021
Heat detections
31
in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
627MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jul10 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

10

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

41°high
59km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 17 Jul.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Sefrou إقليم صفرو where it started
    498 ha reached on 10 Jul
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Broadleaved forest50 %
  • Coniferous forest40 %
  • Agricultural areas6.0 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland3.2 %

Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
9 Jul 40.1 °C 10 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
10 Jul 41.3 °C 6 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
11 Jul after 40.0 °C 13 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
12 Jul after 34.8 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.9 mm Very high 40
13 Jul after 32.4 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Jul after 35.2 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
15 Jul after 36.6 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Jul after 39.2 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 41
17 Jul after 37.6 °C 19 % 46 km/h 1.1 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 2 Jul 2021
After · 17 Jul 2021

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 12 July 2021 the air beside the fire reached 66 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak66 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM10147 µg/m³
78910111213
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 31Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Morocco ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sefrou fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 9 July 2021 and 10 July 2021: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 497 hectares (5.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sefrou (498 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.3 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Morocco (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 15 · 150

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 15 · 150.

Where this data comes from

The perimeter and land cover come from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), measured on MODIS and Sentinel-2 imagery and published under CC BY 4.0. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.